


For Jack's memory

by RocioWrites



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-24 20:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1615571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocioWrites/pseuds/RocioWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They move around the house like ghosts. The dinosaur toy has never been picked up from where Jack left it. It’ll never be, probably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. They're fucked up

[*](http://thezwuzimaster.tumblr.com/post/47904673513/lintu91-they-dont-talk-about-it-its-an)

They don’t talk about it. It’s an alternative universe or a lie or a half dream that’s real even when it wasn’t supposed to happen. They can’t find the strenght to leave it all behind. They don’t say a word. They watch how everyone dances around them and the topic and how no one really knows how to deal with it.

Aaron drinks. A lot.

Spencer cries and bites the little turtle shaped pillow.

It may be sorrow or something else, but they don’t have sex anymore. Aaron is always busy, working, filling reports. Spencer flies two days to visit his mom and comes back with a broken heart and a fight with William.

JJ is torned apart between making Henry spend more time with them or not. Morgan comes the weekends with movies and in the end, just Spencer and him watch them. Aaron always has some excuse.

They don’t fight to be honest. They’re zombies; shadows of their usual selves trapped in an endless nightmare.

Garcia can’t say the name out loud. They don’t want to hear it anyway. However the memories are there. Aaron still reads a story every night.

They move around the house like ghosts. The dinosaur toy has never been picked up from where Jack left it. It’ll never be, probably. The car toy sits in the middle of the bed, just beside the boy’s bagpack.

Aaron knows Dave and Prentiss whisper behind his back. He knows this isn’t healthy. But fuck healthy because he is a man who has lost everything in his life. And the team can’t ever understand. Hell, Spencer can’t really understand either.

Sleepless nights are filled with visions of little dead bodies and screams, arms that never reach and bloody hands.

They're fucked up. And they know it. Everyone knows it.

Strauss gives them both time off. They just take two weeks.

Jessica doesn’t talk to them either. She’s silent and after the first month she moves to another state. Sometimes she calls but as soon as Aaron picks up and says _Hello_ she hungs up. Like a mad stalker, sometimes she goes back and parks on the other side of the street to watch the house, to watch the shadows of those who aren’t there. Of those who won’t be there ever again.

*

Everything is worse than Spencer thought when they stop sleeping in the same bed. Aaron doesn’t sleep on the couch either, he stays all night sitting beside Jack’s bed whispering and talking to the silence.

*

“I can’t do this anymore.” He says one day. It’s been five months and things are so impossible to bare.

“Okay.” Aaron replies. Spencer wants to cry and hit him and make him understand but Aaron is a rock right now. All they have is a work that consumes everything they are, everything they love. Spencer can’t take it.

“I mean it.” The young doctor insists.

“If you want to go, you know where the door is.”

Cold fury and ice in their veins.  _This isn’t healthy by any means,_  Spencer thinks and needs a moment to process the fact that Aaron is completely lost.

“Aaron, please…” Spencer begs but doesn’t stop him when Aaron walks away to get himself a drink. “Talk to me. We can’t live this way… Please…”

This isn’t a confrontation but Aaron’s eyes fill with tears and he doesn’t finish his glass of scotch, which Spencer counts as a success.

“Go away, Spencer.” They both freeze in their spots. “You deserve better. You deserve someone who isn’t damaged, who can give you everything…”

“Stop it. I love you, I want to be with YOU. I don’t want someone better, I just want to make this alright.” He confesses and sees how Aaron is so pale and ill-looking that he's afraid the man will pass out.

“You can’t.”

“No, I can’t if you don’t help me. Help me make this better, for you, for me and for Jack’s memory.”

“I… I don’t know how to make it alright…”

“We can figure it out together.” He offers and Aaron finally sets the glass on the table with trembling hands and ragged breath. They both are containing tears. “Tell me we’re gonna figure it out together Aaron. I can’t lose you too…”

A lonely tear rolls down Aaron’s cheek and Spencer kisses it away.

“…you won’t ever lose me.”

*

That night they sleep in the same bed.

Spencer wakes him up with a kiss the next morning, a kiss that Aaron answers with love and passion. They don’t have sex but the gropping is nice and natural. Spencer feels like they’re taking a step in the right direction.

Aaron confirms it when he says “I love you Spencer Reid.” in his hair and kisses him again.


	2. Sean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean is the last one everyone thinks of.

[*](http://thezwuzimaster.tumblr.com/post/47996603935/lintu91-n-a-set-in-the-same-verse-as-this)

Sean is the last one everyone thinks of; like he’s some sort of heartless man who doesn’t love his family. He never gets to talk more than five minutes with Aaron and he’s sure Spencer must be a pile of nerves and sadness.

However, he’s in New York and he doesn’t have the nights of crying and mourning. He doesn’t have any pictures and it’s killing him to no end the fact that he someday will erase from his memory that little face, that smile, those eyes…

_It’s not fucking fair!_

He tries to smile at the restaurant, he flirts with the ladies and he looks like nothing happened. When he’s in public.

He’s a crying mess when he’s left alone to his toughts.

*

“Are you drunk?” He can tell from the hoarse voice and the soft and erratic rythm of the words.

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me, Aaron. I know you better than you think.”

“I’m not drunk, Sean.” The other assures him, and this time the voice is firmer and it’s meant to convince him. Sean doesn’t buy it, he knows this is the worst thing a parent can ever imagine; and Aaron is facing it. “What do you want?” Aaron finally asks.

The phonecall goes downhill from there.

*

It’s almost funny how no-one tells him _I’m sorry for your lost_ and everyone goes _You need to help your brother_.

He understands it, okay? He really does. But he fucking lost Jack too, even if he wasn’t there as much as he wanted; he lost his nephew, thank you very much for your consideration.

*

The next few times he calls the answering machine is all he hears. He’s pissed off, yes. And he’s lonely and terrified and fuck fuck  _fuck_  his brother and the family Sean doesn’t feel he has.

*

Some mornings he pretends Jack is still alive, that he will see the little boy when he goes back to Quantico. Some nights he prays for his soul, even when he’s sure Jack’s in Heaven now.

Sean never did that, never prayed, never hid the truth from himself. But this?  _This is unbearable_. And for God’s sakes how does Aaron go to work every day without falling apart? How do they keeping living?

Sometimes Sean is convinced this is a nightmare. Sometimes he thinks about all the things he should have done with Jack.

*

“He won’t answer the phone?” He asks and Spencer’s voice trembles.

“Uhm, sorry.” It’s all the genius says. Sean wants to force Aaron to talk to him but it won’t happen now, he knows it. “There’s something I can help you with?”

So polite.

“Is he ok? Does he keep drinking?”

The silence gives him the creeps. There’s too much silence.

“He’s doing the best he can, Sean. But it’s hard,  _so_  hard. And… yes, he keeps drinking.” He finally admits.

“You should go.”

“Excuse me?”

“You should go. Make yourself happy. This is gonna destroy you if it hasn’t happened already. You’re young and maybe that will shake Aaron up enough to see around.”

“Are you… are you saying that I should leave your brother? … _now_?”

“I’m only saying…” But Spencer hungs up before he can finish.

*

*

And then one day, he can’t take it anymore. So Sean stops calling and directly knocks on his brother’s door.


End file.
